Hello everyone... This story was meant to be a filler during the Walking Dead Season 4 Hiatus but I was totally lazy those 4-8 weeks... I plan to get these up as soon as possible I'm hoping the current season doesn't change too much before I finish it.
Disclaimer... I do not own the Walking Dead and have no chance of becoming a zombie... This story if it has to be is an alternate universe/timeline.
CHAPTER 1: THE SHEPHERD'S FLOCK
Trekking through the heavily wooded area of Georgia, Rick Grimes a former sheriff turned survivalist, walks haphazardly supported by his son, Carl Grimes, a young male in his early teen years. Badly bruised, injured, and covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, Rick somehow manages to continue moving. A black woman carrying a Katana sword followed closely behind them.
"What about the others dad," the teenager asked his semi-dazed father. "Judith might still be with the group, Beth or Maggie. We should go back."
"Never go back. Don't ever go back," the sheriff responded holding his right arm against his chest.
His father's words prompted a tear to stream Carl's otherwise solid face. "So we just leave? Just abandon everyone?"
"No one else made it to the rally point," Rick countered. His eye fell to the woman following them. "No one else made it, right Michonne?"
"Possibly," she responded.
"You don't know that. They could just be held up," Carl reasoned. "We shouldn't just abandon them."
"Damn it Carl," Rick's voice rose. "We can't go back!"
Emerging from the tree line in waist deep grass, the pair came across a desolate and empty road. Carl pulls his father down to a crouch by his stained sheriff's shirt.
"What is it Carl," Michonne asked following suit.
Parting the tall grass revealed hundreds of Walkers shuffling toward them less than 50 feet away. Walkers became the term Rick's group used to describe the once living human beings reanimated after dying. Rick had it explained to him as the result of a disease already lying dormant in living humans that awakens after the heart stops.
It sends the basic of impulses from an otherwise deaden brain causing the corpse to move, grab, and feed. All traces of that person's humanity disappear including memories, consciousness, emotions, and sensation.
Walkers migrate searching to satisfy their cravings for flesh often gorging on living humans and animals. They'll extend their arms to ensnare the victim while sinking their rotting teeth into the human's flesh. If not an immediate violent death, a Walker's bite transfers an infection into its meal causing severe fever leading to death and accelerating a person's transformation.
"It's a herd," Michonne said recalling her experience being trapped in a car by one while on a medicinal run once.
"We should get across-."
"Dad," Carl interrupted. "There isn't any cover on the road. We'll never make it across without being seen."
The boy's intuition was correct as Michonne nodded her approval. Though instincts demand flight, in this situation a herd of Walkers would be an unyielding shadow. Despite their slow march, Walkers are relentless in their pursuits of food and don't stop for sleep or fatigue. Carl's eyes climbed a large tree trunk with thick leafy branches.
"We should hide," the boy lead his father and female warrior unseen to the back of the tree. Together they ascended almost 20 feet into the air.
Making sure that he gave his father enough room, Carl found himself on a branch hanging over the road. He held his breath as the zombie herd passed underneath the tree. Following the march of easily 500 Walkers, Carl smiled knowing he made the right decision.
"Carl," his father said in a harsh whisper. "Come back here."
"Alright dad," Carl returned the whisper seeing his father by the trunk and a black left hand curving around the trunk from the other side.
The branch creaked while the boy motioned as stealthily as he could back toward the base of the tree. A few feet away the branch snaps and both it and Carl fell into the center of the migration.
Stunned shock and an involuntary blink prevent Rick from seeing a 6 foot patch of grass cut through the mob of undead sprouting over top of his son at the middle of the herd.
"Carl! Carl," Rick yelled his whisper attracting the attention of several Walkers but both he and Michonne were too well hidden to be seen.
Shuddering from his latest loss, Rick cried lying against the tree whispering "Carl" over and over. His mind flashed to the memories of his late wife, Lori Grimes, who died months ago giving birth to his daughter, Judith, in a prison they called home.
This miracle of life occurred while a crowd of Walkers found their way inside the grounds of the prison sanctuary dividing the group. Unfortunately, Judith was in breech and Lori had to undergo an emergency Caesarean section in an unsterilized room.
Unable to endure the trauma inflicted upon her body, Lori died during delivery. Carl undertook the responsibility of preventing Lori's imminent reanimation by shooting her through the head.
Next Rick recalled several days ago when the Governor, a ruthless sociopath, attacked the sanctity of their prison home. After what amounted to a prison yard fight and the cause of Rick's most recent injuries, all the members of Rick's group that survived were forced to scatter.
With Carl as support, Rick eluded the influx of Walkers attracted by the commotion from the gun fire moving deeper into the prison grounds. When the two neared their way to the prison structure, they found an empty car seat stained with blood alone in the yard. It was Judith's car seat.
Assuming the worst, Rick and his son left the prison wandering the Georgian woodlands. They waited almost two days at the rally point for their friends to arrive of which only Michonne did. Before moving on, Rick decided his sole reason for living from now on was protecting and keeping his son, Carl, alive.
But now that Carl's been devoured by a herd of Walkers, Rick's will to live died. His nerves shot. Slowly the former lawman lifted his pistol to his mouth. Placing a finger on the trigger, Rick closed his eyes preparing to die when a series of bird calls echoed the tree line.
Dismissing the sounds as nature, Rick gripped his pistol hesitating again when one of the chirps turned into a whistle. It was the type of catcall construction workers directed at pretty women passing by. Repeated whistles drew Rick from his self loathing and the black hand of his friend found its way lowering the gun.
Poking his head from the foliage, the sheriff spotted a few figures in the trees across the road. One of the persons pointed to Rick then down at the passing herd.